A long time ago in a ZIP code far, far away, I discovered the deeper meaning of October. That meaning eludes most of us who are native to the west, particularly those whose range is limited to California. Not only is the meaning of October obscured by our perpetual sunshine, but the month never manages to get across the Sierras from the east. In California, September overflows the banks of its calendar page, bleeding into the following weeks until, one day, it’s suddenly Christmas. Sure, we are obligated to pretend that it’s October, writing a “10” on the date of our checks, but that signifier is just an arbitrary demarkation between two identical territories, much like the sign that announces you’ve just left Downey and entered Bell Gardens. If not for the sign, you’d have no idea you were in a different city.
My epiphany came shortly after I graduated from college, when I moved to northern Virginia to serve an internship in Washington, DC. It was there that the scales fell from my eyes and I beheld the magic that is October.
October occupies the liminal space not just between summer and fall, but between cheerfulness and melancholy. It’s the fulcrum between life and the onset of gradual death. (Thus wrote the man who recently retired and is staring 60 in the face…) You feel it back east in a way you don’t in the west. It’s the turning of the leaves, of course, but it’s also a hundred other things, both tangible and intangible: the gradual disappearance of birds and other wildlife; the insuperable encroachment of darkness upon the ever-shortening days; the felt need to remain cloistered in one’s house to avoid the bitter cold and the angry elements, hiding behind storm windows and bracing for the ruthless storms off the Atlantic. For all appearances, the trees, ponds, and the ground itself become still, cold, bare, and dead.
October’s dread role as September’s exterminator is accentuated, of course, by the build-up to Halloween. People who were perfectly friendly and well-adjusted earlier in the year now decorate their homes with skeletons, vampires, and ghouls. Our collective consciousness turns to the macabre. Sure, Halloween is celebrated in the western states as well as the eastern ones. But somehow the season takes on a deeper, more organic meaning amid cities dating back to the era of witch trials and grave robbing. The old churchyards I kept encountering in my travels around Alexandria, with their lichen-blotched headstones and ancient trees, helped to move Halloween from the realm trick-or-treating to a much more atmospheric season when it’s harder to convince ourselves that we’ve successfully expunged the fears of our ancestors.
That single October that I spent in Virginia changed forever how I look at October. The Philosopher’s Stone at the center of this alchemy was a book of stories by Edgar Allan Poe that I purchased at an antiquarian bookstore in Alexandria. It was in October, of course, and the owner — a tall, wizened man with a black coat and a bolo tie — urged me to read the book in properly atmospheric places, and let the mood overtake me. Alone in a strange city, with little else to do, I figured I’d take his advice.
Notably, Poe was not exclusively an author of macabre stories, though that’s what he’s now known for. Still, most of his writing has a touch of the lugubrious. And sitting there at a coffee shop near Christ Church (est. 1773) in Old Alexandria, with dead leaves stirring in the wind and the iron-grey sky placing the whole city in a shadow, I found myself “letting the mood overtake me,” as the bookseller had urged. For me, that mood returns every October, even though I’ve now returned to the less melancholy climes of southern California.
Poe died in Baltimore 170 years ago this Monday. And so Poephiles in that city have organized a “Poe-tober” festival this weekend. I will be attending, along with my good friend Chris, who, in addition to being a fellow devotee of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, is also well acquainted with Poe’s writings. This weekend I will be reporting on the festival events in this blog.
Meanwhile, to more fully commemorate the uncanny nature of this month, I have enlisted the help of Mr. SpookyBones. Starting today, and each day throughout October, this blog will include a photo of Mr. SB enjoying the month as my alter ego.
I hope you enjoy these daily mementos mori.
Chasing Phantoms 